Making Money Making Movies.

Once again, the house down the street is shooting something on their property. It may be a commercial, or a movie, but whatever it is, it happens about six times a year.

The parking signs go up a day or two before filming. Then the trucks and crew arrive early in the morning. There are orange cones and big white trucks. A retired cop on a bike. Hordes of tattoo covered guys, some with dangling cigarettes. Frantic women on walkie-talkies.

The house is a 1940’s ranch on a large piece of land. There are six-over-six paned windows, black shutters and a pitched roof. It could be a stand-in for Anytown, U.S.A. And the owner, whom I understand is also a location manager, must be joyfully paying off his mortgage with so many large productions paying fees on his property.

Two doors down from the location home is another house where the owner almost went into foreclosure. After ten years, he was unable to pay his mortgage.

But that’s LA.

Some of us can keep our homes, by letting other people rent out our homes, for make-believe families who do not really live in our homes.